Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. The wireless communications systems may utilize communications networks to exchange messages among several interacting spatially-separated devices. Networks may be classified according to geographic scope, which could be, for example, a metropolitan area, a local area, or a personal area. Such networks would be designated respectively as a wide area network (WAN), metropolitan area network (MAN), local area network (LAN), wireless local area network (WLAN), or personal area network (PAN). Networks also differ according to the switching/routing technique used to interconnect the various network nodes and devices (e.g., circuit switching vs. packet switching), the type of physical media employed for transmission (e.g., wired vs. wireless), and the set of communication protocols used (e.g., Internet protocol suite, SONET (Synchronous Optical Networking), Ethernet, etc.).
Wi-Fi or WiFi (e.g., IEEE 802.11) is a technology that allows electronic devices to connect to the WLAN. A WiFi network may include an access point (AP) that may communicate with one or more other electronic devices (e.g., computers, cellular phones, tablets, laptops, televisions, wireless devices, mobile devices, “smart” devices, etc.), which can be referred to as stations (STAs). The AP may be coupled to a network, such as the Internet, and may enable one or more STAs to communicate via the network or with other STAs coupled to the AP. Wireless networks are often preferred when the network elements (e.g., APs or STAs) are mobile and thus have dynamic connectivity needs, or if the network architecture is formed in an ad hoc, rather than fixed, topology. Wireless networks employ intangible physical media in an unguided propagation mode using electromagnetic waves in the radio, microwave, infra-red, optical, etc. frequency bands. Wireless networks advantageously facilitate user mobility and rapid field deployment when compared to fixed wired networks.
Many wireless networks utilize carrier-sense multiple access with collision detection (CSMA/CD) to share a wireless medium. With CSMA/CD, before transmission of data on the wireless medium, a device may listen to the medium to determine whether another transmission is in progress. If the medium is idle, the device may attempt a transmission. The device may also listen to the medium during its transmission, so as to detect whether the data was successfully transmitted, or if perhaps a collision with a transmission of another device occurred. When a collision is detected, the device may wait for a period of time and then re-attempt the transmission. The use of CSMA/CD allows for a single device to utilize a particular channel (such as a spatial or frequency division multiplexing channel) of a wireless network.
As more and more users gain access to networks, and as these users continue to demand greater and greater capacity from their wireless networks, throughput on the networks must increase. In one embodiment, this may be done by controlling discovery and scanning procedures for devices on the networks. For example, an AP may coordinate discovery and scanning procedures for STAs and other APs that use a particular network or networks channel. Accordingly, methods and systems of controlling and coordinating discovery and scanning procedures that improve bandwidth and throughput of the network by reducing random interruptions for discovery and/or scanning are desired.